Charging locusts? A 14th Century Seal from Lower Austria

In 1338 an enormous locust swarm from Hungary moved up the Danube to Austria and Southern Germany. In his autobiography (Vita Caroli Quarti), Emperor Charles IV provided the most famous description of the swarm, as it crossed his path in Lower Austria end of July 1338.[1] He recounted that the thunderously loud swarm stretched over seven miles and that its density completely shrouded the sun. Parts of the swarm traversed Bohemia, as the chronicler Franz of Prague described so impressively[2], and reached the Rhine, but a considerable number of the insects obviously also arrived in Northern Italy.[3] Scientific results, which examine warve-chronologies from the Schalkmehrener Maar lake in the Eifel region, West of river Rhine, even found a uniquely high concentration of insect remains in the sediment layers attributed to 1338.[4]

Oddly, medievalist scholars and climate historians have never focused on the events between 1338-40 exclusively, clustering them into the context of locust invasions over several centuries.[5] No specific identifiable meteorological conditions seem to have existed in East-Central Europe or Italy that would have favoured the breeding of locust swarms, so the area of their origin most probably laid elsewhere.[6] However Christian Rohr has pointed to a rather interesting object which was possibly connected to the locust invasions of 1338-1340.[7] The object in question is the 1347 seal of Niklas Fronauer, a nobleman from Lower Austria, which is decorated by a coat of arms charged with a locust (Fig. 1).[8]

Figure 1: Seal of Niklas Fronauer from 1347 showing a locust as his coat of arms (Source: Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv St. Pölten [NÖLA], St. Urk. 354; all rights reserved).

The Fronauer family lived in the first half of the 14th century near Krumbach and Würflach on the border of Styria, Southwest of Wiener Neustadt.[9] Linking this heraldic figure to an encounter between the members of this family and the locust swarm of 1338-40 is difficult to prove. However a connection might be established here because the Fronauer family not only lived in the affected area but they seemed to have used the locust figure on their coat of arms only between 1340 and 1347[10] – the immediate aftermath of the events. As far as I can see on the basis of previous heraldic research, a locust is quite a uncommon choice as a heraldic charge, especially as this does not involve canting arms of noble families.[11] However, most examples of locusts that could be found in heraldic databases and collections seem to be either undated, from the early-modern period or even later.

The apocalyptic event of the 1338 locust invasions in Central Europe obviously made a huge impression not only on contemporaries, and most probably on Late Medieval Austrian noblemen, but also on present-day histotainment with fantasies running wild.
So let me ask the assembled community of experts on heraldry a question: Is the locust charged coat of arms depicted on this seal from 1347 a unique finding? And if we accept the hypothesis that we can connect the temporary appearance on Fronauer’s seal with the locust invasion of 1338 in Lower Austria, are there further examples of disastrous events depicted on coats of arms in the Late Middle Ages?

Cite the article as: Martin Bauch, "Charging locusts? A 14th Century Seal from Lower Austria", in: Heraldica Nova: Medieval and Early Modern Heraldry from the Perspective of Cultural History (a Hypotheses.org blog), published: 13/01/2016, Internet: https://heraldica.hypotheses.org/4074.

[10] For the coats of arms of this family see Ludwig Freidinger, “Wappen des Adels, der Geistlichen und der Bürger im Pittener Gebiet, im oberen Münztal und in der Nordoststeiermark im Mittelalter“, PhD diss., Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, 1990, 164-68. The seal in Fig. 1 is not discussed there but we find a certain Alber Fronauer – in uncertain relationship to Niklas – who uses a seal with a unclear zoomorphic figure in 1340, identified either as a bird (hawk?) sitting on a sprig or as a locust (Ibid., 164-65). I owe this very helpful hint to Dr. Thomas Kühtreiber (IMAREAL, Krems), who provided me generously with literature and further help.

Dear readers and commentators: I received a lot of feedback on my question, publicly and on other channels. I thank everybody for their helpfull expertise, which was very appreciated; yet I have to summarize: There seem to be no comparable examples of locusts as charges from the Late Middle Ages, for sure not from the 14th century. And I didn’t want to forget to mention, that it was in the very beginning Max Weltin who discovered this unusual seal for the first time and passed the hints to colleagues, until it finally arrived to me. If there are any further news, I’ll certainly inform you via this blog.

Locusta migratoria, Locust, among the most formidable of these pests in the Old World. Locust symbolize the quickness in battle. These insects fly in swarms and carry devastation in all fields where they spend. Some noble houses may have taken the Locust in their arms in memory of someone of their ancestors hunted and defeated a horde of barbarians who wanted to invade part of the kingdom, either by land or by sea.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Name *

Email *

Website

Follow:

The collaborative blog Heraldica Nova is an initiative of the Dilthey-Project ‘Die Performanz der Wappen’ (University of Münster) which aims to study medieval and early modern heraldry from the perspective of cultural history. Read more ...